Legal marijuana ‘will reduce crime,’ Seattle Mayor McGinn declares

That’s still an open question because neither Washington nor Colorado, which is also in the process of making legal pot available, has fully permitted legal marijuana to buy and to hold. So, the jury is still out.

“Look at marijuana legalization. We’re now going to see businesses fighting for market share, instead of gangs fighting for turf. That will reduce crime, and reduce incarceration of our youth. That’s positive change.”

That echoes what McGinn had stated in his 2012 address that got a lot of national attention prior to Washington voters approving legal marijuana:

“It is time we were honest about the problems we face with the drug trade. Drugs are a source of criminal profit, and that has led to shootings and even murders. Just like we learned in the 1920s with the prohibition of alcohol, prohibition of marijuana is fueling violent activity. We also know today that the drug war fuels a biased incarceration policy. The drug war’s victims are predominantly young men of color.

“Seattle is the kind of place that isn’t afraid to try a different approach. We support safe access to medical marijuana and made enforcement of possession of marijuana for personal purposes our lowest enforcement priority. But we’ve learned in the past year that with the federal war on drugs still intact, and with our kids still getting gunned down on the streets, we need to do more.

“I know every one of the city council members sitting to my left and right believe as I do: it’s time for this state to legalize marijuana, and stop the violence, stop the incarceration, stop the erosion of civil liberties, and urge the federal government to stop the failed war on drugs.”

“The main purpose (of I-502) is to use, for the first time, economic weapons to undercut that black market (selling marijuana). The only thing prohibition really accomplishes is to give the criminals a monopoly on supplying marijuana, so we want to take that monopoly away from them.”

But has it worked anywhere else?

There are not a lot of places in the world where marijuana and other “illicit” drugs have been made essentially legal, but Portugal is one such country.

In 2001, Portugal reduced the use and possession of drugs that have not been prescribed or otherwise “authorized” from a criminal offense to an “administrative” offense, or, put another way, jail time was replaced with the offer of therapy, which can be refused without penalty.

Compared to the European Union and the U.S., Portugal’s drug use numbers are impressive. Following decriminalization, Portugal had the lowest rate of lifetime marijuana use in people over 15 in the E.U.: 10%. The most comparable figure in America is in people over 12: 39.8%. Proportionally, more Americans have used cocaine than Portuguese have used marijuana.

The Cato paper reports that between 2001 and 2006 in Portugal, rates of lifetime use of any illegal drug among seventh through ninth graders fell from 14.1% to 10.6%; drug use in older teens also declined. Lifetime heroin use among 16-to-18-year-olds fell from 2.5% to 1.8% (although there was a slight increase in marijuana use in that age group). New HIV infections in drug users fell by 17% between 1999 and 2003, and deaths related to heroin and similar drugs were cut by more than half. In addition, the number of people on methadone and buprenorphine treatment for drug addiction rose to 14,877 from 6,040, after decriminalization, and money saved on enforcement allowed for increased funding of drug-free treatment as well.

Of course, the counter to this approach by Washington’s new marijuana laws has been that the state will not be able to sell the drug at a low enough price to effectively counter the black market prices. But one has to wonder if a couple more bucks at a clean, well-lit, official pot-seller store might be enticing enough.

Another big question that will likely remain unresolved for some time is how the burgeoning medical marijuana industry will fit in.

Already, there is a move afoot in Olympia to tax medical marijuana sales. And if it isn’t taxed, then the state-licensed stores will be at a disadvantage, pricewise. But does that matter?